Jennifer hadn't opened her eyes yet, but she was decidedly awake. She recognized that she was confusingly sore, her right arm was asleep, and that there was an incredibly bright light coming from somewhere near her because it was shining almost directly into her eyes and making her quite grouchy at it. But underneath all of that initial unpleasantness, she felt…well, she felt at peace. It was the kind of feeling someone only really recognizes for what it is after it's been gone for a long time. She finally opened her eyes, still groggy, and saw their hands. They had pulled away from each other slightly over the course of the night, but her hand still rested against the couch and his still hung over the edge of it, reaching for her. She liked the contrast of his tanned skin against her paler complexion; she liked the implied contradiction but balancing that it suggested.
She glanced up at Duke to see that he was still asleep. He looked as peaceful as she felt, the knot that had seemed to be permanently between his eyebrows was gone and his breathing was even. She didn't want to wake him. Something told her that this was the first good night's sleep he'd gotten in a very long time.
Little John, apparently feeling the movement of Jennifer's head against his middle, started tentatively wagging his tail against the couch. She let out a quiet breath of a laugh at Little John before absently moving to press a kiss to Duke's knuckles. His skin was warm and familiar under her lips, and she couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face in response to those feelings. He shifted as her lips brushed the back of his hand, making her pause in case she'd woken him. Thankfully, he only sighed in his sleep and adjusted his head on the pillow. She studied him for a moment and contemplated kissing him before she just sighed, smirking at herself.
Time and place, Jen, she thought to herself, besides, he'll probably want to be awake when I kiss him.
She released his hand to roll over, away from the couch, and carefully pushed herself up off the floor since her right arm was only just getting blood rushed back into it. As she pushed herself up to her knees, she became suddenly aware of how stiff her neck, shoulders, and back were thanks to the night spent sleeping on the floor. The plush, shag rug had given her some padding between her back and the coarse carpeting that was basically just resting on top of cement, but not enough to be equal to sleeping on an actual mattress—as her aching back was telling her. A shiver ran through her as she stood, her body continuing to slowly wake up with the rest of her, and she grabbed Duke's shirt that he'd laid over her the night before, shrugging into it to put some distance between her bare arms and the "cold" of the shop. She glanced back over her shoulder towards the couch as she leaned against the doorframe to the kitchenette to check on him. He was still asleep and she couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face; he looked nice there. She could get used to seeing him asleep like that next to her. She walked into the kitchenette to start on a pot of coffee. She pulled the collar of the shirt up to her nose and took a deep breath, enjoying his scent and the feeling of ease that came over her with it.
"I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."
She found that she was really starting to like that feeling of safety and peace that came with that thought.
Little John climbed to his feet shortly after she stood, stretching and yawning as he did, and thankfully not shaking his head to cause his dog tags to jangle against him like he'd done last night—she wanted to let Duke sleep for as long as possible and as much as she loved Little John, he could be really obnoxious in the morning.
She recognized that she was moving at half-speed, her body punishing her for spending the better part of the night on the floor when her own bed was within reach, and it was hindering a large portion of her thinking, putting her more on auto-pilot than she'd prefer as she moved around the kitchen. She tried to stretch her arms over her head to get the knots out of her shoulders, only to immediately regret it, as the knots only seemed to get worse and tighten in response to the movement. Her right arm, now apparently filled with pins and needles, certainly wasn't any happier about being moved around. She looked over the wire shelves, grabbing the can of coffee grounds and a box of Earl Gray tea and set them both on the counter. She yawned, rolling her head against her shoulders, as she grabbed the coffee pot and began to fill it with water. As she did, she tried to figure out if it was coffee or Earl Gray that he usually had before he did his yoga.
Wait a minute.
She froze in front of the sink, still holding the coffee pot in her hand and now startlingly awake. How did she know that? How could she have possibly known about his morning routine enough to question what he preferred? She set the filled coffee pot on the counter next to her, and stared into the sink as she tried to think this through. Little John perked his ears towards her from his spot in front of the fridge, apparently sensing the shift in her, but made no move to get closer to her as she tried to sort through her thoughts.
Of course, she knew how she knew that—she couldn't have gone through the last few days and not known—but she didn't know or understand why this kept happening. Without pushing, without fighting, all these little things, these little nuances of her forgotten relationship with Duke kept popping up and making her act with a fractured sense of familiarity towards him that was only compounding her confusion about her feelings towards him and probably not clearing anything up on his end.
[PARAGRAPH]She liked him, she knew that much even if she didn't know much else; he made her laugh, made her feel at ease and safe by just being near—but was all of that just because he was helping her to remember? Was it him she liked or what her locked away memories were indirectly making him out to be? Oh god, wasn't this the same fear she'd had about his feelings for her? Was there ever going to be a point in their…whatever they were, where that question wasn't going to be hanging over them like a guillotine?
She braced her hands on the sink as she continued to think. The knot in her shoulders from sleeping on floor seemed to only tighten and radiate pain up her already stiff neck and head as she leaned forward slightly.
She sighed before she let out a mirthless breath of a laugh. This was getting ridiculous—and beyond frustrating, and annoying, and tiring and any other litany of synonyms for those same words. She needed more of her own memories—the memories without Duke, the ones that led to him, the ones that could very well be bleeding into her dreams—and she needed them soon. She'd told him last night that she wouldn't compete with a ghost and yet it felt like that was exactly what she was doing in—and for—her own mind.
And that was a terrifying thought.
She rubbed her forehead and squeezed her eyes closed, trying not to focus on the knot in her shoulders and instead trying to make a plan for the day.
She would talk to Adelaide about doing another pseudo-hypnosis session that day—that was a given—and she'd push and push until she had something closer to actual answers—answers that made sense, answers that would make the throbs stop—no matter what it took.
This ended now.
She felt arms wrap loosely around her waist, causing her to let out a small sound of surprise. The arms pulled her back gently against their owner and thankfully out from her thoughts.
She let herself be pulled back before she turned her head to look up at Duke and smiled at him, hoping that her frustration wouldn't be clear on her face in favor of the relief she felt from being with him, "And good morning to you, too."
"Mm." He mumbled back, hair mussed from sleep and bowing his head so his forehead rested on her shoulder. He rocked them slightly as he readjusted his feet and his hold on her, and sighed into her neck. It reminded her of Little John's reception of her when she'd come home after a long day or from traveling for a particularly intense story—all snuffling and shuffling and trying to be closer to her. Though, she mused, when Little John went to kiss her, he always seemed do it uninterrupted. That thought, however, led to her thinking about tongues—in particular Duke's—and she rushed to quell the line of thought that would lead to before the blush could be too noticeable to Duke and he'd have to ask her about it.
Instead, she chuckled at him and reached to scratch the shorter hair on the back of his head—something she'd do with Little John when he'd act this way towards her to comfort him—and leaned her head towards his so her cheek rested against his temple. He let out the slightest moan of enjoyment and nuzzled his face against her neck as she lightly let her fingers run through the short hair there and down his neck and what little she could reach of his back. She couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face, or the blush for that matter at the sound he made, as she asked, "Did you sleep well?"
He sighed as he moved to place his chin on her shoulder, causing her to move her hand to the side of his neck, "Pretty well, all things considered. Especially after a very pretty brunette came and sat with me."
"Oh?" She smiled, moving her hand from his neck to lace her fingers with his on her waist, "Maybe you should look into seeing that pretty brunette more often, then, yeah?"
"Hoping to." He mumbled back. She felt the anticipation for him to place a kiss on her neck before she understood it and it only made her earlier thoughts that much more…aggravating. It was just more fractured familiarity that she didn't know what to do with, even though every part of her really enjoyed that fractured familiarity. The realization made her tense in his arms as she looked away from him and she wished it hadn't.
He must've felt it too—or at the very least he felt her tense—and understood that it wasn't the right moment for…whatever it was that he was thinking of doing, because he said quietly to her as he squeezed her middle, "I, ah, I woke up and…and you were gone."
She stilled in his arms further, knowing the importance of that statement without truly being able to completely understand it yet. She wasn't sure how to reply to that so she went with responding to it as if it were any other statement, and shook her head slightly, still not looking at him, "Sorry, I just, uh, I just figured you'd, um, you'd want some coffee. You know, for when…for when you woke up?"
He tightened his grip slightly around her waist again; "Just…wake me up first, next time."
She turned in his arms at that, wrapping her own arms around his neck and pushing her initial confusion down in favor of just enjoying this moment. It was only a moment before he was smiling down at her, but it was a moment long enough for her to see the fear and old sadness that had been in his eyes.
She smiled up at him, hoping to flirt with him and distract him, "'Next time,' huh? Aren't we optimistic? You think the date went that well?"
"Well, I got to stay the night, didn't I?" he asked back, still smiling at her and keeping his arms secure around her waist and her close to him.
She mockingly jabbed him in the chest, "Hey, I'll remind you that it was my cousin who offered you that couch."
"Uh-huh, but it was you that asked me to stay. And it was you who came out looking for me in the middle of the night." He retorted, crouching slightly to look her in the eyes and glare at her mockingly as he brought his left hand up and covered hers so it rested against his chest.
"I was not—!" She started, only to be met by his exaggerated look of incredulity. She opted, instead, to just scrunch her nose back at him, and earned a chuckle out of him. He studied her for a moment, a small smile on his face, before he glanced towards the counter as he straightened and saw the coffee and tea on the counter.
She saw him look and pulled out of his arms enough to get back to what she was doing. She sighed and rubbed her forehead, and answered the question in his gaze, "Yeah. Actually, I was, um, I was just trying to remember if it was coffee or Earl Gray that you preferred in the morning."
Duke looked at her wide-eyed.
Jennifer just nodded, as she let out half a laugh and started trying to roll up the sleeves of his shirt on her arms, "Yeah that was about my reaction too."
She ran her hands through her hair briefly before starting in on the coffee, trying to joke over her shoulder, "How do you like that, huh? We spend all of twenty-four hours together, and just like that—," she snapped her fingers for effect, causing Little John to go from sitting to immediately standing at attention by the fridge, "—all these little details about a relationship that I don't even remember being a part of are just right there."
She let out a mirthless chuckle, the coffee maker starting to churn away, and pulled out a teakettle to boil the water for the option of tea. He never technically mentioned which it was that he preferred, so she figured the option for both wouldn't hurt anything.
She continued, "Meanwhile, everything else that has to do with how I met you is like…is like grabbing at a shadow in the fucking fog."
She filled the kettle and set it to boil before she turned and looked at him again. He'd braced himself against the counter with his left hand and was watching her carefully. There was something familiar about his positioning, about seeing him in an undershirt and a pair of pants; something that prompted only the words, "I'm an idiot" in his voice to ring in her head.
Nothing else came with the words—not a throb, not an "almost" image of something, nothing—and it only made her more agitated.
Speaking of a fog. She thought bitterly.
Little John whimpered slightly by the fridge, still standing at attention.
She ran her hands through her hair again and sighed as she threaded fingers against the back of her neck, "I'd ask what you think it means, but judging by the look on your face, I'd say we're both as lost as we were last night, and the day before that, and probably even before that so I guess there's no real point, right?"
Duke shook his head, "I like it better when you have unfailing optimism."
She smirked, "You give me something to be optimistic about, Sailor, and I'll be Suzy Goddamn Sunshine."
Duke sighed, "Jennifer…"
"What?" She all but snapped at him, throwing her hands around as she spoke, "'Have patience'? 'We just have to give it time'? God, it's only been a day and—ugh, aren't you getting sick of hearing that? Because I sure as hell am getting sick of saying it."
Duke took a step towards her and placed his hands on either side of her neck, doing the same thing he'd done the night before. He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs as he quietly shushed her. She calmed almost instantly and pulled her lips into her mouth so it formed a thin line as she looked at him.
How did he keep doing that? How did he keep making things calm and quiet in her with just a look or a touch? She looked at him and felt tears prickling the backs of her eyes and she wished that she didn't—it felt like all she'd done the last three days was try—and fail—not to cry.
She placed her right hand over his forearm and she could see him tense, like he expected her to push his hands away like she did the first night they met—were reunited, as her memories were continuing to suggest. She gave his arm a squeeze, trying to be reassuring and to dissuade him from pulling away from her.
Before he could say anything, though, she spoke, "I'm sorry. You don't deserve me yelling at you about all this. This probably definitely isn't what you signed up for and I get that, I do; but I—,"
"Would you stop?" Duke interrupted, smiling sadly at her, "Would you just stop for two seconds? What was it that you said your mom called you? The Energizer Bunny?"
She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment but didn't say anything more, even as she smiled at him. He gently prompted her to tilt her head back, "Jen? Jennifer, hey, look at me."
She let out a breath through her nose and finally did. Before he could say anything, she spoke again, "Doesn't this feel fractured, to you?"
He gave her a confused look, "What?"
"This. Us. Whatever." She said. She'd moved her hands to grab at his tank top, thinking that maybe if she hung on to him, she'd be able to ground herself further, "I just…with all this half-remembering things and all the feelings that come with them—I mean, I'd understand if—,"
"Do you want me to leave?" He asked before he could stop himself. She was starting to sound like she was working towards asking him to go away, and he wanted to give her that out, to show that he understood. This had been an intense two days for her and she was already in a fragile place; he didn't want to give her another reason to be frustrated or stressed out about all this.
"No." She said immediately, looking at him in surprise. Little John, who had finally sat back down after realizing that Jennifer's finger snap had nothing to do with him, perked his ears up as he looked from Jennifer to Duke and back again expectantly. She moved her hands from his shirt so that she reached up and grabbed his forearms again; as if she were afraid he was going to disappear if she didn't do something to keep him there, or keep her hands moving over him—trying to convince herself that all these different parts of him were connected and therefore real; "No, I don't want you to leave."
She shook her head, mostly at herself, "I'm sorry, I—,"
"You don't have anything to apologize for, Jennifer." He said, moving his right hand from her neck to her shoulder but keeping his left steady against her neck. She felt like there was an importance to the gesture—in keeping his left hand there as opposed to anywhere else—an importance that she almost understood, but she felt how she had when she'd asked him to stay last night: like it was something that meant something to them, and like she didn't have a right to it yet.
She wanted to, though. She wanted to finally have a right to it.
She let out a breath of a laugh, "I kind of do, actually. I'm here talking about how I feel that there's something fractured and out of place about this…this intimacy that's between us, yet I'm usually the one who initiates it and who pulls away first. Doesn't that bother you?"
Duke tried to smile at her, "You sure you're not trying to get rid of me, Short Stack?"
She laughed, bowing her head and letting some of her hair fall in her face before looking back up at him through the fallen locks there, "God, it sounds that way, doesn't it?"
The teakettle started whistling behind her, making Little John stand back up and "oof" at it, and she turned back towards the oven to turn the heat back down. She turned back to Duke and crossed her arms over her chest, pulling his shirt closer around her.
Duke smirked at her, taking a step closer to her, and reached out to tuck some of the hair that'd fallen towards her face back behind her ear. She closed her eyes, relaxing under his fingers, and focused on his touch, on how it made all the thoughts in her mind calm down until they weren't acting like buzzing bees defending their hive.
Please don't stop, she wanted to say, please just keep touching me so everything's quiet, so I stop fighting for half-memories, so you're the only thing I have to focus on. Please.
"Listen, Jennifer," Duke was saying as he absently let his trailed his fingers down her jawline, she raised her eyebrows at her name to show she was listening but she still had her eyes closed to focus on his touch, "This is about you. So if you feel like acting on that…that intimacy that you feel, then act on it. You definitely won't hear any complaints from me, I can tell you that much."
She started to laugh before he'd finished the thought and opened her eyes to look at him. Her eyes were brighter now, no longer as dark and heavy as they had been when she'd first started talking. He brought his other hand up to cradle her face, and she turned her head slightly into it so that his palm pressed more solidly against her cheek.
He smiled back at her and continued, absently letting his fingers trail from her jaw to under her lips and then over them lightly, "And once you do act on that, if it doesn't feel right anymore, then feel free to stop. You won't hear any complaints from me on that either."
Her eyes were sliding closed again even as she smiled lazily at him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him towards her, "Oh? Aren't you the gentleman."
He chuckled as he moved his right hand back to the other side of her neck to tip her head back towards him as he took a step closer to her, letting himself be pulled towards her. As he leaned down towards her, he mumbled, "Heart of gold, sweetheart, remember?"
She smirked as she began to rise on her toes to meet him halfway, her eyes already closed.
"I was summoned by the smell of coffee." An all too familiar voice said from the entrance of the kitchenette, followed by the telltale rainmaker sound of the beaded curtain parting and falling closed. Little John happily walked over to Adelaide, panting at her excitedly as she scratched his head.
Duke pulled away, sighing, as Jennifer groaned and gestured emphatically, "No, no, no, no, no, c'mon in, you're not interrupting anything."
Duke looked at her, wondering if she realized that she was saying something that he'd said when they were together—same inflection and everything—but Adelaide was already moving around them to get to her damn coffee, preventing him from asking her. She was wearing a gray t-shirt that said, "To quote Hamlet, Act III, Scene III, Line 92, "No"" in large black print and a pair of dark blue pajama pants with light blue 'Z's printed on them with an image of the cartoon character, the Pink Panther, curled up and sleeping on the bottom of the right leg.
She chuckled at her cousin, "'S my kitchen, Jen. You wanna complain about me interruptin' somethin'—," she shot a pointed look between Duke and Jennifer before smirking, "—or nothin'—," before Jennifer could snap at her, Adelaide pushed on, "—I'mma have to remind you that you do have your own goddamn room with your own goddamn real door to be as private as you want. Which, I recall, was part of its appeal."
Duke grabbed a mug and the box of Earl Gray tea while Adelaide grabbed the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. Duke grabbed the teakettle from the stove and took his collection to the table to sit, shooting Adelaide a sideways glare as he went, with Little John following close behind him. Her mouth curved up in a lazy smile around the rim of her mug in response as she leaned back against the counter and regarded Jennifer.
Jennifer scowled at Adelaide from her spot against the sink, "I forgot how eloquent you are when you first get up."
"What d'you want from me? A poem?" Adelaide replied, mockingly sneering at her and prompting a similar expression from Jennifer. They sneered at each other for another moment before Jennifer broke, giggling slightly at her.
Adelaide gestured grandly with her coffee mug, "'Ode to a Morning: You come in unannounced, you never pay rent, I have to drink heavily to get through being with you; our end is near, don't prolong it dear. You know what? Just get the fuck away from me.'"
Jennifer laughed uproariously at Adelaide as Duke walked to the table. Duke sat in one of the chairs that faced away from the kitchen and poured the hot water into his mug as Little John took his spot back under the table and rested his head on Duke's feet.
As her laughter subsided, Jennifer couldn't help but notice how fond of Duke Little John was and found that she was quite relieved that Little John liked him so much. Jennifer was sure she remembered Little John reacting less than friendly a few times to some of her other dates, and while he'd eventually grown to tolerate them, he'd never been as friendly as he was being with Duke. Duke moved his right foot out from under Little John and rubbed his chest with it, earning a series of contented grunts from Little John as his tail thumped against the floor. Duke mumbled something down to Little John and Jennifer smiled to herself.
Adelaide, mistaking the smile Jennifer had on her face as one meant for her, smiled back at Jennifer before she leaned towards her to kiss her cheek, "Mornin' Cos."
Jennifer repeated the sentiment to her, as Adelaide seemed to be made aware of the shirt that Jennifer had on over her usual sleepwear and her smile turned knowing as she plucked at the lapels of the shirt, "Must've been quite a night."
Jennifer gave her a confused look before following her cousin's gaze to her newly acquired over-shirt. She blushed even as she glared at Adelaide, crossing her arms over her chest defensively thus knocking Adelaide's hands away, and mumbled, "It's not what you think."
Adelaide just smirked at her over the rim of her coffee mug, "I don't think anything, Jen."
"Well good, 'cause nothing happened." Jennifer whispered harshly at Adelaide before sighing and adding even more quietly, "And at the rate we've been going around here, nothing's going to happen."
"Not for lack of trying, I've noticed," Adelaide replied, having the good grace to whisper back and shift closer to her. Jennifer looked like she wanted to make another comment, probably about how they kept getting interrupted since they came here, but Duke spoke first.
"You'd be surprised how well someone can hear a conversation going on in the kitchen from here." He commented, not turning towards them but still making his point and stirring his tea.
Jennifer's blush only worsened as Adelaide laughed outright and made her way towards the table, "Nothing gets passed you, eh?"
Duke just shrugged, taking a drink of his tea, as Jennifer poured her own cup of coffee. Adelaide took her seat at the head of the table to Duke's left as he set his mug back on the table, "Something you pick up as a businessman."
Adelaide chuckled as she leaned back into her chair, "I don't doubt it. So. How did our local Businessman sleep?"
Jennifer, to distract herself from her rapidly increasing blush, rummaged for the dog food and bowl stand in between the fridge and the wall, causing Little John to crawl out from under the table and excitedly walk to her. She smiled at him, talking to him quietly as he hopped up slightly next to her to sniff at her face and the food. She chuckled lightly at Little John and gently pushed him back down, mumbling, "Ease up there, Little Thing. You'd think I never feed you."
Duke shrugged again at Adelaide, "Well enough. And before you go trying to make your cousin blush more, she only has my shirt because she sat up with me after she'd had a nightmare."
Adelaide's expression turned grave and she turned her gaze to Jennifer as she took the seat to Duke's right, Little John crunching away happily at his food by the wire-shelving unit. Duke immediately moved his hand under the table to give Jennifer's knee a squeeze once she was settled. She straightened almost the moment he touched her knee, and once he squeezed it, a new blush flashed across her face. Duke gave her a knowing smile; over a year and he still remembered that her knees weren't just ticklish—they were also rather pronounced erogenous zones for her. She bit the inside of her cheek but managed to smile back at him—albeit with a little bit of barely concealed agitation—before meeting Adelaide's gaze. She'd deal with him and his smug, sexy, knowing smile and his warm eyes and his hands—and, oh, the things she imagined he could do with those hands and—oh don't follow that thought, Jen, this is breakfast for god's sake—later.
"That's two days in a row now, Jen." Adelaide said, either unfazed by her cousin's shift in demeanor or not noticing it. She ran her finger around the rim of her mug, her gaze still intense over her glasses, "Are we going for a 'third time's the charm' thing, or are you finally just going to tell me about it?"
Jennifer tried to shrug dismissively as Little John, now finished with his breakfast, reclaimed his place under the table with his head on Duke's feet. Jennifer crossed her legs under the table, taking Duke's hand in hers to get it off her knee. The action earned her a knowing smirk from Duke, as she tried to reply to Adelaide, "Well apparently it is the third time so—,"
"What." Adelaide asked, but her tone was strong enough that it could only be heard as a statement. Jennifer recognized it as Adelaide's pissed off "Mom" voice—she'd only really heard it one other time and the result was Brielle being grounded for two weeks.
Jennifer stiffened in her chair, feeling Little John stiffen himself and adjust his position so that he was closer to Jennifer, as Jennifer narrowed her eyes at Adelaide, "Don't you be mad at me."
Duke tensed in the chair next to Jennifer in response to her defensiveness and turned in his chair slightly to act as a wall between her and Adelaide. Jennifer squeezed his hand under the table, trying to get him to calm down again like she'd done the night before.
Adelaide sighed and rolled her shoulders slightly against the back of her chair, obviously not impressed with being on the receiving end of a pair of glares, "I'm not—!" She snapped slightly before she stopped herself.
She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath threw her nose before she tried again, "I'm not mad. I just—just tell me what's going on, Jen. Please."
Jennifer studied Adelaide for a moment before sighing as well and leaning back in her own chair, the knot in her back was only made worse from trying to sit up straight in it. She squeezed Duke's hand again, hoping that he'd calm down enough so that he wouldn't do anything. She wasn't sure what she meant by "anything" but she felt like he was capable of it, whatever it was.
Duke let out his own breath through his nose but leaned back in his seat as well, grabbing his mug to try to continue the look of relaxation he was going for. Jennifer wasn't completely convinced of that though, and rubbed her thumb against his until he glanced over at her. She quirked her eyebrow at him, silently asking if he was going to be all right enough for Jennifer to have this conversation with Adelaide. He squeezed her hand in response and just twitched his forehead upwards, a gesture she took to mean, "This is not what I really want to do but I'll do it because that's what you want" and she just smiled back at him, relieved.
She let out a slow breath as she looked back at Adelaide. She started to explain the nightmare—in full this time—being sure to note how the room seemed strangely similar to the room she'd been using in at the shop to Adelaide, before bringing up the discrepancies in between the two times she'd had it, until she reached what she and Duke realized last night.
"Apparently, um, I've had this nightmare before." She fidgeted in her seat, suddenly nervous about how Adelaide would react to her revelation, "From when I was with, um, with Duke. Which has only raised more questions about my memories and only made me more frustrated about them."
She left out the addition of Duke's voice at the end of the dream, since that would only lead to the inevitable discussion about how some of her memories—in particular the memories about Duke—came up without any pushing and she still wasn't sure how to breach that topic with her cousin, or even with herself for that matter. Besides, Adelaide had remained more or less terrifyingly stoic throughout her recounting of the dream and it was starting to make Jennifer nervous.
Duke had watched her carefully as she'd talked, not interjecting or slowing her down, and glanced at Adelaide frequently to gauge her reaction to what Jennifer had said. Jennifer absently squeezed Duke's fingers under the table, getting him to look at her, and when he did, she half expected him to kiss her cheek or to do something like that but he only looked at her and squeezed her fingers back under the table.
In the back of her mind, she wondered if part of the reason they hadn't managed a real kiss yet was because he was too afraid to do it. She'd gleaned enough—even if it didn't feel like very much at all—about what the passed year had been like for Duke to know it hadn't been easy, but she didn't know what that meant for whatever they were.
Not that that had anything to do with the conversation at hand, but c'mon, a person can only blame so much of their missed chances on cosmic coincidence before it just had to be about choice, right?
She looked back to Adelaide, who had gone from a blank expression to concentrated confusion as she stared into her coffee mug.
"Adelaide?" She asked gently, bowing her head slightly to try to catch Adelaide's eye.
"Hm?" Adelaide hummed back, not really looking at her yet.
"Where you at right now, Cos?" Jennifer asked, a small panic settling itself in her stomach, "You're kind of freaking me out right now."
She didn't like Adelaide's expression or how it seemed to be taking her so long to actually formulate some sort of response to what Jennifer had told her. It was calculating, almost, but mixed with agitation and, worse of all, fear. Adelaide was never afraid; what was happening? Jennifer used her free hand to absently rub at the muscles in her shoulder, trying to get them to relax more and maybe make her head stop hurting by extension.
Adelaide seemed to come back to herself then, shaking herself and sitting up straight, and she tried to smile at Jennifer, "I'm—,"
She stopped abruptly and began to study Jennifer for a moment. She then glanced briefly between her and Duke before finally looking back to Jennifer, her eyes narrowing at her, "—You want to ask me something."
Jennifer bit her lip and looked into her mug for a moment to avoid her cousin's rather piercing gaze, "Well. Yes."
Adelaide looked at her expectantly, though she glanced at Duke briefly, her gaze as calculating as it had been the night before as if she expected him to say or do something, or that she thought whatever Jennifer wanted to ask had to do with him. What was she looking for?
Jennifer shifted in her chair and let out a slow breath, "I want to do that, uh, that hypnosis thing we did yesterday."
Adelaide nodded slowly; still apprehensive about whatever it really was that Jennifer really wanted to ask her, "That should be fine."
"But I want to keep pushing even when you think I should stop." Jennifer said in a rush, knowing that there was a very real chance that Adelaide wasn't going to like Jennifer's request.
Adelaide, predictably, bristled, "Jennifer, you don't know—,"
"And that's the problem!" Jennifer nearly yelled back, pulling her hand out of Duke's from under the table so that she could gesture emphatically at her cousin, "I don't know! I don't know what I do remember and what I don't, I don't know who I am—I don't know what I am, I don't know what Duke and I are—for fuck's sake, Adelaide I don't know anything!"
Adelaide had leaned forward at some point during Jennifer's brief ranting, and spoke back just as adamantly, repeatedly tapping her index finger against the table as she spoke sternly, "Jennifer, I know that this has been frustrating—," Jennifer scoffed at that, but Adelaide pushed on, "—but you doing that—you pushing like that—isn't going to help anything. It's not about you knowing everything right now, it's about keeping you safe."
"But I'm not safe!" Jennifer yelled back and immediately regretted it.
Adelaide gave her a confused, fearful look, "What are you talking about?"
Jennifer looked away from her for a moment, pulling her lips into her mouth, her regret clear on her face. Adelaide pushed again, "Jennifer, what are you talking about? Of course you're safe, you're with me."
Not according to what came up last time, Jennifer thought but she kept it to herself, afraid of hurting her cousin and her cause more than helping it. She didn't know how to tell her cousin about the looming dread that she'd felt for the last two days, or how to tell her what Duke had revealed to her yesterday about why he'd reacted to her like he did. She knew she needed to tell Adelaide—she owed it to her—but she couldn't seem to find the words or the courage to do so.
Jennifer glanced at Duke who was still watching her carefully. He reached out and reclaimed one of her hands and squeezed it, saying quietly, "It's okay, Jen."
Jennifer squeezed her eyes closed and let out a slow breath, "I died, Adelaide."
There was a moment where no one said anything. Jennifer had opened her eyes again and was nervously shifting in her seat as she waited for Adelaide to say something. She didn't know why that one seemed the easiest between the two things she wanted to tell her, but it was and now she had to wait for the consequences of it. Duke had turned his gaze to Adelaide as well, and was studying her reaction carefully, seeing an interesting parade of emotions flicker across her face that he doubted Jennifer noticed—fear, resignation, relief, acceptance, calculation—they were so fast that even he struggled to categorize them before they were gone again, and the parade of it all only made him angrier, and more suspicious of her. Finally, Adelaide leaned back in her chair, her face pale after finally settling back appropriately into fear, as she whispered, "What?"
Jennifer sighed and shook her head, apparently having only seen the fear in her cousin's face and not any of the other emotions that flickered across it, "I don't really remember why or how yet—that seems to be one of the memories that I have hidden away in my head—but it's…it's true. I died."
There was another moment of silence as Jennifer let Adelaide process that information before she spoke again, "And Duke hasn't said anything more about it yet, but—,"
Adelaide glared at Duke who only bristled further under her gaze, "You knew? This whole time you've been in my home and you fucking—,"
"Adelaide don't." Jennifer said sternly, Little John growling lightly by her feet. Adelaide stopped, turning her gaze back to Jennifer, and while the anger there was enough to make Jennifer want to flinch away from her, she steeled herself and glared back at her cousin as she said forcefully, "It's not his fault."
Adelaide scoffed briefly, moving to make some sort of comment about how Jennifer couldn't possibly know that for sure, but Jennifer spoke again, "At the end of the dream—the nightmare—I start to hear this voice—and it's a—it's one that's so full of fear and desperation that it wakes me up feeling those same things. It's Duke's voice that I hear, Adelaide. It's his voice that pulls me out. He's why I want to push more."
Adelaide pulled her lips into her mouth, an expression similar to Jennifer's, and looked between them again. She studied Duke for a long moment, obviously noting that Duke's hackles were still raised and that they didn't seem to be lowering any time soon. Adelaide couldn't blame him—she'd be on her guard too if she were in his position—but she didn't flinch away from the challenge he was posing in his gaze, something that, under very different circumstances, Duke would've respected.
Duke refused to back down as well; even without the legitimate feelings of agitation he had about Adelaide snapping at him or with the residual agitation that Jennifer had towards Adelaide just a minute before; something in the way she'd reacted told him that something was off—she knew much more about the situation than she was saying.
And he was getting really fucking tired of that seeming to be the case about everything relating to Jennifer lately.
They glared at each other for an almost uncomfortable amount of time before Jennifer nervously tried to joke, "Kind of makes your concern for my safety seem silly, huh? Since the worst thing that could happen to me already has?"
Adelaide turned her gaze to her to look at her in disbelief, before Jennifer stammered, "I'm sorry that was a bad joke—not that this is funny in anyway—I just—No one ever really prepares you for a talk like this you know? I mean, how the hell do you even say "Hey Cos, just wanted to let you know that among a bunch of memories that I didn't even know I had I also seemed to have died"? Well, I guess I did—just say that, that is. But anyway, so I don't really know how to—,"
"Jennifer?" Adelaide said exasperatedly, rubbing her eyes with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand as she spoke.
"Yeah?" Jennifer answered, nervously biting her lip.
"Please." Adelaide moved her hand from over her eyes to hold it up at Jennifer, "Just. Stop."
Jennifer nodded, pulling her own lips into her mouth so it formed a thin line and leaned back in her chair. Little John, apparently convinced that the danger from earlier had passed, sighed under Jennifer's feet again, turning it into a whine towards the end of it. She patted him with one of her feet and absently raised her free hand to squeeze the junction of her neck and shoulder, trying to force the knot out of the spot there again.
Adelaide arched an eyebrow at her cousin, "Sleeping on the floor coming back to bite you on the ass?"
Jennifer let out a nervous chuckle as she nodded back.
Adelaide watched her for another moment before she sighed, nodding towards the door, "Go on up and shower, Jen. The hot water will help to work out the knots in your back. We'll talk more about a 'pseudo-hypnosis' session once you're a bit more relaxed."
Jennifer grinned at Adelaide, relieved that she'd be willing to indulge Jennifer in letting her pull up more of her memories. Adelaide just smiled back, even if it was a bit tighter than Jennifer would've preferred, as she grabbed her coffee mug again.
Even with her relief, though, she glanced between Adelaide and Duke, clearly seeing the tension between the two of them and not wanting to leave them alone together to fight. Adelaide's smile turned sympathetic, if not a little understanding as she looked back at her, "Don't worry, Jennifer; we'll play nice."
At Jennifer's skeptical look Adelaide chuckled and made a show of drawing an 'X' on her chest, over where her heart was, with her free hand, "Promise."
Jennifer glanced back at Duke, hoping to earn the same promise from him. He studied her for a moment, watching her eyes nervously flicker between his and zeroing in as she bit the corner of her lower lip again. Before he could stop himself, he kissed the corner of her mouth, getting dangerously close to a real kiss. It was as much as he knew he could handle in that moment; just feeling the softness of her skin under his lips again, being close enough to breathe her in—it was so much more than he remembered it being, and so much more than he knew how to handle.
He pulled back to smile at her and it took everything in Jennifer not to grab him and pull him back and finally kiss him for real. His smile gained a smug edge to it as he looked back at her, making Jennifer glare at him.
Oh you ass, she thought to herself, narrowing her eyes at him, you know exactly what you're doing, don't you?
"We'll be two peas in a pod by the time you get back; Scout's honor." Duke said, still smirking at her. He didn't miss the frustration in her eyes, and damn if that didn't make his smile grow.
She narrowed her eyes playfully at him, "Something tells me you were never in the Scouts."
Duke just grinned back at her and leaned into his chair, "Oh sure I was, you know; 'First do no harm,' 'talk shit get hit,' uh, 'always be prepared,' 'first rule of Boy Scouts: don't talk about Boy Scouts;' all that,"
Jennifer laughed, "Oh Duke, no."
"Well, what about 'do no harm but take no shit'?" Duke asked, smiling at her.
"Oh shut up," Adelaide commented from her chair as she took a drink from her mug, stifling her own laughter. Jennifer mockingly glared at her cousin who held up her free hand to stay Jennifer's remark, "Honest, there will be no fighting while you're gone."
Duke tried to smirk at Jennifer as well, to make her feel better about leaving them alone, and gave her hand another squeeze as she stood from her chair to head upstairs, "Besides, you're the only one who can really get me to shut up."
Little John climbed out from under the table, shaking himself, before trotting through the beaded curtain and out of the kitchenette. Jennifer imagined that he was headed back to his couch or to lie in one of the sunrays that were still pouring in through the display windows.
Jennifer laughed as she walked around his chair so she stood behind him and casually looped her arms over his shoulders and around his neck so that her hands rested on his chest, "Right. Well, when I finally get to enact that power, you let me know, yeah?"
He turned his head to look up at her and smiled at her, placing his own hand over her forearm there and stroking her arm with his thumb, "You'll be the first to know, Short Stack."
She grinned back and kissed his forehead before she could think to stop herself, earning a knowing look from Adelaide who commented, "Well. Aren't we awfully familiar after just one date? You sure there's no extenuating circumstances behind you wearing our local Businessman's shirt, there, Cos?"
Jennifer just made a face at her before addressing Duke, "Though that does remind me; do you want it back? I mean, I don't know what else you have for clothes and I don't want to keep you from the ones that you do have so—,"
He just squeezed her arm, "Nah, why don't you hang on to it for now for me? I think I have some spare clothes in my truck anyway."
Jennifer smirked at him, "Well look at you; Mr. Preparation."
"I was in the Scouts, remember?" Duke quipped back.
Jennifer just shook her head at him before he murmured low enough so she was the only one to hear him; "Besides, I always did like seeing you in my shirts."
Jennifer blushed bright pink to the tips of her ears before trying to smile back at him nonchalantly. Oh, she was going to make him pay for this; even if she didn't know how yet, she was going to get him back.
He chuckled at her before she started to pull away, letting her hands drag over him and across his shoulders as she went. He tried not to close his eyes at feeling her fingers drag across his skin like that, he tried not to grab her back and have her settle into his lap just so he could hold her close. Instead, he held his left arm up and out to try to prolong her touch, until her hand was in his. He held on to it until she had to stretch her own arm out, as equally unwilling to end it as he was. They smiled at each other for a moment before Jennifer finally pulled her hand free from him and headed back out to the rest of the shop and towards her cousin's shower.
Duke watched her leave before turning back to Adelaide.
Little John, predictably, was lying on the floor directly in a square of sunlight that was coming in through the display windows so that most of the light was on his body while his head was outside of the square of light. Jennifer shook her head at him and mumbled at him about being lazy. His tail just thumped against the floor—mostly because he heard her voice, she was sure, not because he understood what she was saying—and she made her way towards the spiral staircase towards the loft. Jennifer tried to think about what the day was going to hold; what were they going to do after she pushed? Would they all just go back to their usual routine? How could they?
She sighed as she walked passed the psych section, glancing at the door there before starting her climb up the stairs. Well, regardless of what else happened today, she knew that Little John was going to need to go out soon. Maybe she and Duke could go for another walk. Maybe go near the water. If they found a bridge she could teach him how to play Pooh Sticks, like she used to do with Robbie the few times it would just be them after Aunt Laetitia died.
He used to like watching the sticks float on the water, whether or not he won never seemed to matter to him; he just loved seeing them gently drift away. Adelaide was out of the house enough under the guise of playing with friends in the neighborhood—sometimes she actually would be, other times, Jennifer knew, she'd been "running wild" and getting into fights—but Robbie didn't have that luxury. It wasn't that Robbie didn't have friends, but as an eight year old whose mother just died, he wasn't exactly great, or even very willing, company for the other neighbor kids. Even if he had been, however, for the first few months after Aunt Laetitia's death he was usually too anxious to actually leave the house. Jennifer was the only one that could get Robbie to go out and do things, mostly because she was good about taking him to quiet places; like the library, or to the park, or just sitting with him in his room and reading something to him. He used to say that she sounded like his mom. Even at twelve Jennifer knew that that probably wasn't possible, but it comforted Robbie and that was enough for her.
She shook her head to try to get her mind off of Robbie—that was still too raw of an emotion for her to deal with right now, let alone her new questions and doubt about the validity of her memories about him and "their" family, and there were more pleasant things for her to think about; like what she and the gorgeous man downstairs could do today. Maybe they could go to the ocean instead. That'd be nice; a walk on the pier, then on the beach where Little John could run for awhile, and they could sit and talk. There'd be a lull in the conversation, he'd look at her with those warm, soft, dark brown eyes and he'd smile at her knowingly and she'd finally grab him by his shirt and know what it was like to kiss him until neither of them could breathe.
She sighed wistfully at the thought, and let her mind wander a bit further.
Maybe they could go somewhere sunny. That felt like a wonderful idea—where she could wear a bikini, where he could relax for once and she could have a drink in a coconut (which was something she always wanted to do), and they'd swim in the ocean and lounge on the beach all day, and forget all about a little—
Wait.
This felt too much like a memory to just be a fantasy. It felt like maybe they had talked about this before. But that couldn't possibly be right, could it?
"Hi Auntie Jen." Brielle said from the couch as Jennifer walked into the loft through the beaded curtain. The sound of Brielle's voice pulled her from her thoughts, and she grinned at Brielle. She walked around to the back of the couch and leaned over it to see what Brielle had in her hands. She was watching one of her cartoons on the iPad Adelaide had gotten her for her last birthday. Adelaide and Brielle had an agreement that on Sundays Brielle could spend the morning watching cartoons until 11, and then it was homework and helping around the shop for the rest of the day. Right now, Brielle was staring the slightest bit slack jaw at the screen in her lap with her purple teddy bear to her left and the purple haired troll doll to her right.
Jennifer scratched the crown of Brielle's head as she leaned further forward to look at the screen with her, "What'cha watchin', honey?"
"The Amazing World of Gumball." Brielle said numbly, not looking up from the screen.
Jennifer watched the screen for a moment with Brielle, before letting out a mockingly disapproving chuckle and kissing Brielle's head. She straightened from the couch, stretching her arms above her head as she went, and headed towards the bathroom just behind the couch, "Don't watch too much of that stuff, Bri, it'll rot your brain."
"Mm." Was the only response as Jennifer started shedding first Duke's shirt and then her own as she kicked the door closed behind her.
She took her time in the shower, letting the hot water work on her back and shoulders and trying to get herself to relax so that if and when she and Adelaide did something to help her unlock more of her memories, she'd be able to get the most of it. Her mind wondered, more frequently than she would be willing to admit, to various fantasies involving the aforementioned gorgeous man downstairs, specifically about how very different this shower would be if he was with her; thoughts of hands, of skin brushing skin, of curious mouths and hands exploring and tasting bodies, of the feeling she'd gotten when he'd kissed the corner of her mouth only amplified throughout her whole body, of hearing him sigh her name in relief and frustration, and of finally getting him back for the teasing he'd put her through at breakfast—all of that paraded through her mind as the hot water thrummed against her back.
Those thoughts, however, were usually, and often quickly, squashed before they went too far—Brielle was in the living room literally on the other side of the bathroom door and she was an adult who was capable of controlling herself.
At least, that's what she kept repeating to herself until she finally left the shower. Though, for a couple of those fantasies, they felt closer to memories, just like the "somewhere sunny" thoughts from earlier—and that certainly only complicated her shower thoughts more.
It certainly didn't quell any of those fantasies, that's for damn certain.
She grabbed her green robe from the back of the bathroom door once she was done in the shower and wrapped herself in it. She debated, only briefly, slipping back into his shirt and only that—that would certainly get him back for the knee-squeeze and the comment about liking seeing her in his shirts—but decided against it, rationalizing that that was more of a revenge plan for after something actually happened between them and not before—and again: Adult. Self Control.
Once the robe was secure around her, she cleared the mirror of the steam on it with her sleeve and studied herself for a moment. She pushed her hair off her forehead; her hair was already turning into a bit of curled mess so she ran her fingers through it to try to untangle it. Regardless of fantasies, messy hair was certainly not a part of the plan for the day—well, it was but not at the beginning—she grabbed another towel from behind her and rubbed her hair with it to try to dry it, opening the bathroom door and walking out into the living room. She bowed her head so her hair fell in front of her face and wrapped her hair in the towel, throwing her head back once it was done so that the excess towel rested on top of her head.
"I can't wait until I get to do that." Brielle commented from the couch, now sitting up on her knees so she could lean on the back of the couch to talk to Jennifer.
Jennifer smiled at her as she turned and picked her clothes up off the bathroom floor, draping them over her arm, "I can teach you if you want."
Brielle shook her head, "Momma says I'm not allowed to learn how to do that until I'm sixteen."
Jennifer gave her a confused look before shaking her head at her, "Your Momma's weird."
Brielle smiled at her, "I know, but I think I'll keep her."
Jennifer kissed her forehead as she headed towards the stairs, "You're a tiny saint, honey."
Brielle just giggled in response, and climbed off the couch to head for her own room to get dressed, her teddy bear and troll doll still sitting on the couch with the iPad. Jennifer headed back down the stairs to get dressed herself. She glanced towards the front of the shop and saw Duke outside on his phone, talking adamantly to someone. She wondered if maybe one of his business ventures—"below board" or otherwise—was going to pull him away from her and she immediately started feeling a bit of nervous anticipation at the thought of the conversation. She tried to quell it though; it was only their first date after all, it wasn't as if he was tied to her for any reason and he could certainly leave whenever he wanted to—she just really didn't want him to. She could hear Adelaide in the kitchen, probably also on the phone—with Holly if her tone indicated anything. She couldn't make out exactly what Adelaide was saying, but it sounded like she was trying to get Holly to agree to something.
Jennifer glanced at the door in the psych section again as she walked forward a bit to see where Little John had gone, and saw that Little John had moved from under his sunbeam to sit at the mouth of the section, staring quizzically at the door. She could distantly hear something through it herself and it was evident that Little John heard something too from the way his head kept cocking from one side to the other, but it was either too muffled or whatever-it-was was being too quiet for her to hear it clearly. She briefly thought about walking to the door to see if she could hear it more clearly, but shrugged off the thought in favor of just heading to the back of the shop towards her own room to get dressed. She closed her door and immediately started trying to figure out what to wear for the rest of the day; and if that phone call was for something that was going to pull Duke away for something, she wanted to give him as many reasons as possible to put it off.
She'd never been with a guy that she wanted to spend as much time as possible with, especially not so soon after the first date. But then again, she didn't think that she'd ever been with someone who made her feel like Duke did. She wondered if maybe they could go to dinner tonight. Maybe go to wherever he was staying after rather than back to her cousin's bookstore; maybe actually have a chance to get to know each other. It was that thought that led her to a light blue lacy bra and panty set to wear under her dress—cute enough so if something were to happen between them she wouldn't be embarrassed but casual enough that if nothing happened (and god help her if nothing happened) she wouldn't be uncomfortable. Secure in her decision, she moved to grab one of her dresses from the trunk at the foot of her bed. It was a yellow-and-blue watercolor dress with magenta flowers printed on the skirt. The pattern of flowers went from dense on the skirt to thinner as it went up the bodice until there were only a few printed faintly on one of the shoulder straps. Once she was zipped into the dress, she grabbed a pair of white leggings that looked like they were made of lace, as well as a white blazer to go over the dress. She grabbed a pair of open toe wedges that perfectly matched the eyelet pattern of her blazer, slid into them, and tried to fluff her still damp hair with her hands as she studied herself in the mirror again.
She had tried to come up with an outfit that would still be cute and pretty should she and Duke do something, but casual enough so that she could just be cute around the shop if that's where they ended up. She knew she still needed to fix her hair and makeup, but she was hungry now since a couple cups of coffee does not a breakfast make. She turned around and grabbed her yellow flower earrings from her dresser. She opened her door and began putting the earrings in when she looked at the door in the psych section for a third time. Only this time, she actually looked at the door there. Mostly because for the first time since she realized there was, in fact, a door in the psych section, that prior to today there had never been a door in the psych section. When she had glanced at it previously, for whatever reason, she hadn't thought it was odd that it was there like she did now. It was as if it was supposed to be there, that it had always been there, but it was at the same time so foreign and out of place that it had to be noticed and seen as strange.
She looked at Little John who was still staring at the door expectantly, head still turning from one side to the other, and asked quietly, "What's going on, buddy?"
Little John glanced briefly at her, tail twitching in a tentative wag, but went back to staring at the door and so did she.
It wasn't a particularly ornate door—in fact it was a rather nondescript door—solid wood and dark brown so that it almost blended into the shelves around it. It honestly looked a lot like the door to her room.
But it hadn't been there yesterday. She was sure of that much. She glanced towards the front of the shop to see if Adelaide was looking towards her, but Adelaide and Duke seemed to be having a rather intense discussion, albeit quietly. They weren't paying attention to her, but she wanted to draw their attention to her and to the door—because surely this classified as something that they would both want to know about—but then the something she'd been hearing from the door started again, and this time, it almost sounded like that who or whatever was on the other side of the door was saying her name. She turned back to the door and stared at it, suddenly more than a little nervous about being near it, but also wanting to open it and find out just what or who the hell was on the other side of it. She took a careful step towards it, and it was like the voices on the other side of the door got the slightest bit louder but not clearer, it was like a gradual, growing roar in her ears where she could only just barely make out her name in the swell.
She knew this feeling.
She'd done this before.
But when?
She distantly heard Little John growl at the door, or at her, and considered, in the back of her mind, that when the animal companion in any other story growls at something inanimate, it usually means trouble and that the protagonist should definitely not be doing whatever it is she's doing around or with said inanimate object. She wanted to turn away, she wanted to yell for Adelaide or Duke, she wanted to do something, but she found that the only thing she could do was keep walking towards the door.
Under the lighthouse.
It had been her choice to open the door—Duke had tried to change her mind—We were supposed to have our flavored coffee commercial tomorrow—they all knew it was her choice, that she had to be the one to do it. But Duke was hurt—no, they needed someone back—no, they needed to put someone back—God, and the voices were louder, more demanding, more insistent—There is nothing that could ever make me go through that door and leave you. Nothing—she wasn't strong enough.
Dave was right. We never should've opened the door.
Don't unlock doors you aren't prepared to go through.
A door once opened can go both ways.
To receive something, something must be taken.
She felt the beginnings of panic root itself in her stomach, causing it to churn and twist in her middle, and her heart was starting to thunder against her ribcage; this didn't feel right. She didn't want to open the door. It felt too much like the "some-thing evil" from her dream. She wanted to stop this now, to walk away and pretend she'd never seen this damn door, or heard anything on the other side of it—she wanted to wake up. But she couldn't—she'd set something in motion that she couldn't control anymore, if she ever could, and she was going to have to see this through.
This wasn't her choice anymore.
She was certain that she could almost clearly make out her name now, and something else as well.
Open the door, Jennifer. Open the door.
No one hears me.
No one cares.
Come back to us, Jennifer. Come back to us.
I am never getting out of this room.
She reached for the door handle.
Duke and Adelaide sat in painful silence at the table for a long moment after Jennifer left the kitchenette. Adelaide continued to drink her coffee and when Duke opened his mouth to say something, she held her finger up to stop him. She tilted her head slightly as if she were listening for something. When she heard whatever it was that she was waiting to hear, she smirked at Duke and lowered her hand.
Pushing his agitation down at being shushed like a toddler, Duke tried to say something again to her, only to be cut off again when she spoke first, "You're gonna wanna take that."
Duke gave her a confused and went to ask her what the hell it was that she was talking about, when he felt his phone start to buzz in his pocket. Duke looked from her to his pocket and back, earning an annoyingly smug smile from Adelaide as she mockingly toasted Duke with her coffee mug, "I'll wait."
Duke fished his phone out of his pocket to see that it was Dwight calling. He narrowed his eyes at Adelaide, who only continued to smugly drink her coffee. He stood and made his way out towards the main floor of the shop. He briefly debated taking the call in the shop but if this was about the owner of the bookstore he was in, he didn't want to risk any eavesdropping—even if she did seem to already know what was happening.
He pressed the "accept" button as he pushed the door open to the street, squinting as his eyes struggled to adjust to the light, "Dwight?"
"Duke! Finally! I've been trying to call you all morning." Dwight said earnestly on the other end of the line.
Duke pulled his phone away from his ear to look at the screen, to see if that were true. His screen, however, showed that there were no missed calls or text messages; there was no indication of any kind that anyone had been trying to get a hold of him prior to this call. He furrowed his brow in confusion, but he had a guess that Adelaide had answers about that—just like she seemed to have answers about everything else that was happening around here. Duke addressed Dwight again, "Uh, sorry 'bout that. I guess I just didn't have a signal or something."
Dwight just sighed on the other side of the line, "The less I know, right?"
Duke let out a breath of a laugh, "Sure. But since I doubt you called me to just confirm what you don't know or want to know, why don't you tell me what you do know and what I want to know."
"Right." Dwight said, "So. About that woman you had me look up."
"What did you find?" Duke asked eagerly. Finally, a chance to even the playing field on his end; Adelaide wasn't the only one who could play the whole sage, all-knowing, Yoda-in-a-trash-can card after all.
"Adelaide Jane Bouquin," Dwight said blandly, clearly reading from whatever report he'd found or put together about the woman, "born February 2nd, 1983 to Laetitia Moore and Noël Bouquin. Mother died in '93 due to a preexisting heart condition, father in 2001 in an accident, brother in '09 due to self-inflicted injuries. Juvie record for one instance of aggravated assault, one instance of trespassing, and one of vandalism; all charges expunged upon eighteenth birthday. Married a Desmond Alonso Rousseau in '05—on Halloween actually, if that tells you anything else about the woman. She gave birth to a daughter, Brielle Cadence Bouquin-Rousseau on August 12th, 2008. Want to know how much she weighed?"
Duke rolled his eyes, "Hilarious. What else?"
Dwight chuckled over the phone, before continuing, "Husband died of an inoperable brain tumor in 2011. After the death of her father, Adelaide became the owner of her family's store, Bouquin Bros. Used and New Books, has not remarried, and her daughter attends an elementary school in the Boston School District."
There was a pause as Duke waited for Dwight to continue, when he didn't say anything more, Duke said incredulously, "That's it?"
"That's it." Dwight conceded, "I could go into more detail on what I do have if you want—mostly hospital records, some report cards, public record stuff."
Duke sighed, "No—I'm pretty sure I already know the details. Well, thanks anyway Dwi—,"
"Just wait a minute," Dwight interrupted, surprising Duke, "That's all I have for legal documents—it's what I found on the Internet that's really interesting."
"Dwight, while I and other singles in the greater Haven area are so relieved that you now know how to work the Internet, I really don't think that knowing the contents of her Facebook page is going to help me here."
"Would you just…shut up and listen to me?" Dwight replied shortly to Duke's comment.
Duke chuckled but held his tongue as Dwight continued, "I did just a general Google search on her—,"
"Cutting edge police work, 'Squatch." Duke remarked, standing from leaning against the display window of the shop and crossing the street towards his truck to check for that change of clothes that he told Jennifer he was sure he had.
"I don't have to fucking tell you, you know." Dwight snipped on the other end of the line as Duke snatched a parking ticket from his windshield. He glanced at it before unlocking the truck and adding it to the others that were stashed away in his glove compartment.
Duke gestured emphatically as he climbed into the truck to start looking, though he knew Dwight couldn't see him, "Sorry, sorry. Last one, I promise."
"Whatever," Dwight grumbled in response, earning another chuckle from Duke before he continued, "So I searched her and, get this, there are at least twelve different variations of an 'Adelaide Bouquin' in different stories—,"
"Stories?" Duke interrupted incredulously as he rooted through things in the back of his truck until he found his old overnight bag.
"Always be prepared," Duke mumbled under his breath as he pulled the bag into his lap before climbing out of the truck with it.
"Stories." Dwight repeated firmly as Duke locked his truck again, "From all over the world. And all the versions of her follow the same pattern: married to a variation of 'Desmond Rousseau,' widowed young, single mother to a variation of 'Brielle Bouquin-Rousseau,' owns a bookstore—there are just minor differences in the details between them all."
"What? How is that even…?" Duke started to ask, his confusion and disbelief clear, and yet at the same time, he almost wasn't that surprised. Since Duke had met her, she'd been more than a little omniscient about…well, everything—why wouldn't she be in stories? And besides, very little about his life surprised him anymore. He resumed his spot against the display window of the shop, setting his bag on his feet.
Dwight just laughed dryly back at him, "That was about my reaction. So who is this woman? Is she Troubled? Is she the byproduct of a Trouble? Do I need to bring in Audrey and Nathan on this? And what does this have to do with Jennifer?"
Duke waved frantically in front of him as if he were trying to cut off Dwight, "No. No, absolutely do not involve Nathan and Audrey. I can handle this."
"If you say so," Dwight sighed on the other side of the phone, though his apprehension was clear in his tone, "but what is 'this'? Who is Adelaide?"
Duke rubbed his forehead and sighed, "I don't know—I mean, she claims to be Jennifer's cousin—,"
"I didn't think she had any family?" Dwight interrupted.
Duke just nodded, "That was my understanding as well, but now…man, I just don't know. I don't know if she's Troubled, if she's the result of a Trouble, I don't know what she has to do with Jennifer—I just know that she's certainly causing me a fuckton of trouble, whatever she is."
"Oh no, someone's being obstinate while you're trying to do something? I can't imagine what that's like."
"Ha. Ha ha." Duke laughed sarcastically back, earning a laugh out of Dwight before a pause fell over them.
"How's Jennifer doing?" Dwight asked carefully, lowering his voice slightly.
Duke sighed, letting his head roll back against the display window, "You remember how she seemed to just bounce back from everything Haven threw at her?"
"Of course. That hasn't—?"
"No, no that hasn't changed." Duke said quickly as he immediately moved his head from the window, stopping the question before it started, and laughed slightly, "She's, uh, she's actually pretty spry for a dead girl."
"Wow." Dwight said sarcastically on the other side of the line, only prompting Duke to laugh a little harder in response.
"She's…" he started to stay, tone turning back to serious, as he shook his head in disbelief, mostly for his own benefit "She's fine. Doesn't remember Haven or any related things, though, so that's made things…complicated."
"Jesus," Dwight sighed, "And neither of you have any idea what's going on?"
"No," Duke shook his head, "But the second I do, you'll be the first to know. Later Squatch."
"Keep me posted." With that, they ended the call, and Duke was left on the street outside of shop. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the window of the shop, enjoying the feeling of the sun and figuring out what he was going to confront Adelaide about once he went back into the shop. He had hoped that the call from Dwight would've been more illuminating than it had been. But like most of the mysteries in his life, all he had were more questions than he did answers.
It was time to confront the source.
He sighed, put on his 'game face,' grabbed his bag from between his feet, and opened the door to the shop, striding back in purposefully. He wasn't even surprised when he saw Adelaide standing at the counter, coffee mug still in hand, smirking at him knowingly.
"So," she greeted, finishing her drink and setting her mug on the counter, "did your police friend give you all the answers your little heart could take about yours truly?"
He glowered at her as he put his bag on the floor against the counter and that only seemed to make her smile grow, "I thought not."
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the shelves behind the counter, as Duke asked, "So are we going to actually do the whole 'question-evasion' dance or are you just going to finally tell me what the fuck's going on here?"
She tsked her tongue at him, "That's no way to ask a lady to dance."
"You show me a lady, Bouquin, and I'll show you manners the likes of which the male protagonists of those 'historical fiction' smut books you think no one knows about in your nightstand have never seen before." Duke snipped back.
"Well, look you had a little pissant with his tea this morning." She laughed back, pushing herself off the shelves to brace herself on the counter, "I gotta tell you though, Crocker, this—," she gestured between them—"is much more fun for me. So I can do this song and dance all day long."
She quirked an eyebrow at him, as if she suddenly saw something in his face that made her change her tone, there was a note of surprise in her voice and of a fledging fear, "Unless, of course, you got a song that'll change the tempo?"
Duke wasn't sure why he hadn't thought of it before, but he remembered it now. He turned from her and walked over to the couch. He rooted around between the cushions and the back of the couch until he found the book that had fallen on his foot last night. He flicked the cover of The Child of Ruin a couple of times with the middle finger of his right hand as he turned to her and walked back to the counter, mumbling to himself, "Yeah I got a fuckin' song for ya."
He all but tossed the book onto the counter so it slid to a stop in front of her. He didn't miss the way her eyes widened, or how she stepped back against the bookcase as it slid across the counter to her. He pointed to the book, "You could start by explaining that."
"Where did you get that?" She asked angrily, glaring from the book to him.
"Oh, what, have I finally found the one thing you don't know about?" Duke asked, hardly containing his smugness, "Stop the fuckin' presses."
"Duke." She said, a warning clear in her tone but Duke hardly cared.
"No." Duke cut her off, even waving his hand to try to physically stop her from saying anything more, "No, you don't get to 'Duke' me. I've been here for a little over twelve hours and all you've done since I've walked into your store is flaunt over me that you know more about what's going on with Jennifer than—than anyone."
He picked the book up from the counter and noted how Adelaide seemed to relax and move the slightest bit closer towards the counter again as the book moved away from her. He gestured with the book, "Now this fuckin' book landed on my foot last night and all that's in here is Jennifer's life and I want—no, I demand to know what this is and why you seem so afraid of it."
His voice had risen as he spoke, but he managed to catch himself before he was full on yelling. Adelaide had crossed her arms again, and it was different from the self-assured stance she'd taken a moment before; it was defensive, as if Duke had found a weak point in her shielding and had gotten too close to plunging his hand into it. She kept her eyes trained on the book as if it was the one who'd insulted her, who'd challenged her, who'd threatened her.
Duke decided to move the book the slightest bit closer to her—partially as an experiment and partially to poke the bear that'd been growling at him since he'd walked into her store—and in response to it, she moved the exact same distance back as he'd moved it towards her.
"Adelaide—," Duke started to say, smirking despite himself.
"You can't bring that book any closer to me than it is right now." She said quickly, still trying to fold herself up to defend herself, but her voice was ice cold, "In fact you cannot let that book touch me. Ever."
"What the fuck—," Duke started again.
"It fell on your foot, right? You've touched it? You've read it?" Adelaide asked just as quickly as before. Duke narrowed his eyes at her but nodded his head. Adelaide nodded back, mostly automatically and barely registering Duke's admission.
She continued, but it was almost as if she were talking to herself more than she was talking to him, as she stared absently at a spot on the counter just to her right, "Then I can't touch it. If I had gotten my hands on it first, if I had made sure, just like with Unstake My Heart—hell if I'd even known—this wouldn't be…damn this shop and who it chooses."
"You got something to share with the class, here, Adelaide?" Duke remarked condescendingly.
Adelaide's gaze immediately snapped from the spot on the counter to his eyes at the sound of his voice. Her eyes narrowed at him, and he could see that she'd gone from being on defense to offense and that she was sharpening what she had to say to him to a fine point, but then something shattered through all of that.
Little John was growling.
Adelaide's confusion cut through her anger at Duke and her gaze scanned the shop for a moment before her eyes jumped to the psych section and the horror that came into her eyes made whatever anger and distrust Duke had for Adelaide freeze in place. He had only just began to turn towards it when Adelaide took off running passed him, screaming, "Jennifer!"
That was all he needed to know to follow after her.
Even though Duke's legs were longer, Adelaide was faster and made it to the psych section before him. He heard her say something, though he couldn't be sure what. As soon as she'd finished whatever she'd said, the smell of ozone filled his nostrils, and there was a charge to the air that made his hair stand on end. By the time he rounded the corner into the psych section, he didn't see what had Adelaide so panicked, but he didn't care.
All he saw was Jennifer.
Jennifer, who was crumbled on the floor of in front of a bookcase as Adelaide cradled her head and spoke quietly to her as she rocked her, and who—dammit—looked so small again.
It was the lighthouse all over again.
And he couldn't take it.
He couldn't do this.
Not again.
"It's okay, Jen, it's gone." Adelaide was whispering to Jennifer, her voice quivering as she rocked her, "I sent it away. I know how to fight the monsters, remember?"
Little John kept his gaze at the bookcase across from where Adelaide and Jennifer were on the floor, every muscle in his frame tensed and poised as if he were ready to strike if given the proper command. Adelaide smoothed some of Jennifer's hair out of her face as her voice turned a little desperate, "You just need to wake up. Wake up and see that it's gone. C'mon, Jen, please."
Whatever had happened, whatever "it" was that Adelaide had "sent away," it had rendered Jennifer unconscious and Duke refused to let her out of his arms or sight again.
"Get away from her." Duke growled at her, earning a responding growl from Little John who, at Duke's voice, now directed his teeth and growl at Adelaide. That was command enough for him.
Adelaide looked up at him and Little John, her eyes bright with confusion and tears, "What?"
"I said," he repeated through clenched teeth, barely containing his anger as he approached Jennifer, Little John staying in his spot with a steady growl coming from him, "Get. Away from her."
Adelaide stared back at him in obvious shock, before she looked back at Jennifer. It was as if she were debating her next action, or as if she were as equally as reluctant as Duke to let Jennifer go for any reason. It didn't really matter to Duke, though, if it was a fight Adelaide wanted for Jennifer, he was more than ready and willing to do just that. Finally, having reaching some sort of resolution in herself, Adelaide moved away slightly from Jennifer and Duke quickly wrapped one arm around her shoulders and his other under her knees to pull her away from Adelaide. He pulled Jennifer close to him, as he stayed crouched across from Adelaide, not ready to lift her yet as he looked her over. She was terrifyingly limp and pale, like she'd been under the lighthouse, and her breathing was shallow—but at least she was breathing. He moved his hand from under her legs to cradle her cheek in his palm, stroking his thumb along her cheekbone, and felt familiar ice slowly forming around his heart as he stared down at her.
Not again.
He trailed his fingers down her neck and pressed his middle and forefinger gently against her throat to feel for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. At that realization, Duke let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and kissed Jennifer's forehead in relief.
Adelaide climbed to her feet quickly across from Duke, scrubbing at her face and steeling herself again, "Duke, I know what you're thinking, but you can't—,"
"No." Duke yelled back at her, rising to his feet with Jennifer cradled in his arms, "You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do."
Little John barked at Adelaide, as if he were trying to back up what Duke was saying next to him.
"Duke—," Adelaide yelled, her anger and fight coming back to her and causing her voice to rise so that it matched his. It came out startlingly similar to a bark, and prompted Little John to growl again in response.
"Momma, what's going on?" a quiet voiced asked nervously, interrupting the shouting match that was about to ensue.
Adelaide whipped around to see Brielle standing next to the far bookcase, looking from her mother to her Aunt's passed out form in Duke's arms with fear in her eyes, until she looked back to her mother for answers.
"Just stay right there, baby," Adelaide said quickly to Brielle, holding her shaking hand up to stay Brielle from coming any closer to the scene behind her. She turned quickly back to address Duke, but he was already rounding the corner at the end of the section to head towards the front of the shop, and hopefully just to the couch to lay Jennifer down. Little John followed closely behind him, whining quietly as he kept his head tilted up towards Jennifer.
Adelaide made to call after Duke, to stop him, to try to get him to swear that he wasn't going to run from the shop to his truck with Jennifer and then take her to the Rouge so that she'd never see either of them again. When she didn't hear the bells on the door jingle open or close, she let out a breath that was half relief and half exasperation, and turned back to Brielle. She was gripping the corner of the bookcase tightly and nervously, her green eyes wide as she looked up at her mother.
Adelaide closed the distance between them and crouched in front of Brielle. She touched her face and tucked her hair behind her ears, as she looked Brielle over, anxiously checking to make sure that she wasn't hurt in any way. She had no real reason to be fearful for Brielle, but seeing Jennifer like that had stirred up familial memories that she'd have preferred stayed locked away.
"Is Auntie Jen okay?" Brielle asked before Adelaide could say something to her.
Adelaide let out a shaky breath and tried to smile at Brielle as she held her face in her hands, "Yeah, Sweetness, she's gonna be okay."
"What happened?" Adelaide moved her hands from Brielle's face down her arms until she was holding Brielle's hands in hers.
"You know how Auntie Jen's really, really special?" Brielle nodded, "And you know how our job is to make sure that Auntie Jen can still be really, really special?" Again, Brielle nodded, "Well those Bad People, those people that Mr. Stretch works for, are trying to take Auntie Jen away and they're being very…intrusive about it. That means that they're coming into our home to try to take Auntie Jen to send a message to me that they aren't afraid of me or what I can do."
Brielle gripped her hands tightly, "But you won't let them, right? You won't let them take Auntie Jen?"
Adelaide smiled wearily at her, "No, baby, I won't let them take Auntie Jen."
Brielle nodded and smiled at her mother, "Good. I want to keep Auntie Jen."
As the words left her daughter's mouth, Adelaide felt a sick horror root itself in her stomach and she grabbed her daughter's shoulders tightly, as she said harshly, "Brielle Cadence Bouquin-Rousseau, don't you ever say that. Do you hear me? That is not—she is not ours to keep. This is not about us, or what we want, and the second you start thinking that or acting like it is, then you disrupt the very, very delicate balance of this shop and our purpose, do you understand me?"
"Momma you're hurting me," Brielle said weakly, her voice constricted in fear.
Adelaide's heart broke but she kept her voice and her grip firm—this was a lesson that Brielle needed to learn and she needed to learn it as soon as she could, "Do you understand me, Brielle?"
Brielle nodded, her eyes starting to glisten with tears, "I understand."
Adelaide looked into her eyes for a moment longer, the eyes that were so similar to her own and that were soon to be her daughter's curse, before finally releasing her grip on her shoulders. Brielle immediately pulled away from her and rubbed at her upper arms. She wouldn't look at Adelaide and she didn't blame her—she didn't really want to look at herself either.
Regret wound itself around her heart and constricted her throat as tears stung her eyes, "I'm so sorry, baby girl."
Adelaide reached out to touch Brielle's cheek, but Brielle only nodded and headed back towards the staircase to the loft, dodging her mother's hand as she went.
